Space Shuttle Disaster

[hobson]

Okay, the washing machine metaphor seems to have fallen quite flat. Nobody, self included, disputes that they make washing easier. This should be rather obvious.

When they first hit the market, they were marketed not as machines, but as manifestations of Progress. Housewives in the ads were pictured leisurely sipping martinis while the machine did all their work. The gadget was to be a huge leap forward in women's lives. Did that happen? Well, how many women with families do YOU know who sit around all day sipping cocktails while their machines take care of the dirty work? Whose houses are gleaming with no effort on their part? Women's work in the home has not gotten easier, because standards of cleanliness adapted to get people to continue buying more products: it is no longer enough just to throw the clothes in the wash and squish them around in the suds--now stains in the laundry are intolerable, please refer to the zillion stain-remover products on the market, and the matching commercials with distraught mothers thinking about their childrens' nasty-looking clothing. Floors must always cast your reflection, toilets are to smell of flowers. (To those who are about to post that your own floors aren't shiny, that misses the point--the cultural standard remains elevated to a level that is nearly impossible to achieve.) I'm just saying that the technology failed to deliver on its promise of progress...because the economic machine that drives progress is ALWAYS hungry and must show you ever newer and better gadgets lest it starve.

You see this kind of rationalization, that higher technology will create utopia, (as in the mother whose washing machine eliminates her housework) with lots of technological artifacts--the notion of a future full of peace and beauty awaits those who buy the objects--families are tear-jerkingly reunited by cell phones and digital cameras, Mitsubishi drivers exist in a surreally lovely landscape, and space travel brings us the tools for global accord (according to the people on this thread).

So....where's the world peace? Ten thousand kids got their limbs hacked off last year in the Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast civil wars, and the per-capita rate of cell phone usage is higher there than in the US. The environmental rejuvenation? We're about to drill for oil in the last untouched wilderness in the US. What went wrong on that one? I don't dispute that technology has made life nicer in a lot of ways, but I don't get why people are so uncritical about it and will happily agree that more tech must inherently mean more of this thing they call progress, which has little meaning in itself anyway, because the definition of it is entirely arbitrary.

OK, I'm done rambling now.

[hobson]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by maggymay:

Industrial conditions will improve in countries when people work together to have them improve, same as they during the Industrail Revolution in Europe. I've been through a huge union-organizing effort before. It's a critical mass effect. It will happen. On the positive side foreign investment is often a stablizing influence on regions. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you blaming the workers for industrial oppression? What I'm reading here is that conditions for the developing nations' industrial workers could be better if they only put their minds to unionizing? As though they were just lazy or unimaginative? It is still the case in many places that union activists risk assassination. Don't you suppose that our hunger for cheap Old Navy clothing, Wal-Mart junk and the like might be implicit here, not to mention the corporate leadership?

Sure, foreign investment can be a good thing. But to generalize means you'd have to toss out all the glaring examples to the contrary. Belgium brought industrialization and commercial enterprise to central Africa, and the catastrophe and death it delivered to the residents is one of the great horrors of globalization.

[DMK]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hobson:
When they first hit the market, they were marketed not as machines, but as manifestations of Progress. Housewives in the ads were pictured leisurely sipping martinis while the machine did all their work. The gadget was to be a huge leap forward in women's lives. Did that happen? Well, how many women with families do YOU know who sit around all day sipping cocktails while their machines take care of the dirty work? Whose houses are gleaming with no effort on their part? Women's work in the home has not gotten easier, because standards of cleanliness adapted to get people to continue buying more products... ...I'm just saying that the technology failed to deliver on its promise of progress...because the economic machine that drives progress is ALWAYS hungry and must show you ever newer and better gadgets lest it starve.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So are you upset because you fell for the Madison Avenue Hype? I hear they have a bridge for sale too!

I mean let's face it, you (housewives, whatever) could choose to plunk your butt down and chug down a cold one while the washer is going. Just because most people by their very nature seem to not be content just sitting around doing nothing when they could do something is not technology's fault. In fact I think one could make an argument that the need to do something instead of nothing is part of that very same drive that spurs invention.

That whole world peace argument is still baffling me. Who was silly enough to think that technology will lead to world peace? Human nature stands in the way of world peace. Technology only changes the details of that intervention. On one note, we can have a less bloody war with some of the smart technology. On the other, we can take out a lot more people with a single push of a button. Good. Bad. Funny how that works out.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein

[hobson]

DMK, would you argue that the world of marketing has no effect on cultural expectations? Interesting, given that few of us still wear 1950s-era house frocks, having bought into the idea that fashion must change annually, seasonally even....Why in the world are "billions and billions" spent on advertising if it has no utility? Doesn't everybody tune in for the superbowl ads to see what the next big thing is going to be?

You also think that overacheiving and high activity is human nature? Me, I think it's something that the ruling classes convinced us of within the last couple of hundred years to keep worker and consumer productivity up. Those horrid PUritans also didn't help, obsessed as they were to avoid any appearance of relaxation whatsoever, in case Satan would arrive to corrupt their unoccupied little brains.

FOr the record, I was not around for the first washing machines, thank you, and you can blame somebody else for claiming that space stuff is going to bring us peace.

[mwalshe]

What people in more technologically advanced countries really have that defines them is choices. We have control over our lives in a way un-precedented in the past. We are not ruled by superstition, tradition, environmental conditions or day-to-day survival. We can do amazing (or stupid) stuff. Life expectancys go up in "developed" countries, infant mortality and the numbers of women dying in childbirth decrease, we have birth control, we have running water. Good things, yes? On the flip side we have professional wrestling, meth labs and people injecting horses with tranquilizers. "Progress" is a word that means nothing, all we have or will ever have is change and the only thing that controls change is the actions of individual people (or at best small groups). Blaming or crediting "society" or "technology" for stuff is just rhetoric.

I'm not uncritical of all technological advances but I see them as discrete occurances. Accusing scientists and engineers of the fact that their inventions and discoveries haven't cured every disease, stopped every war and provided us all with limitless free time yet is IMHO kind of irrational. (Not that I think any of you are being irrational just some of the sentiments being expressed here are IMHO, but I know you're all trying to make a point) Scientists and engineers research things and synthesise things and the new things they create or "discover" cause change. A lot of people don't die from diseases anymore and that has created a huge new problem in some areas: overcrowding, and over-reliance on locally scarce resources. Should we stop vaccinating people and thin the herd or is that just an unfortunate side effect of "good" progress? Are scientists the ones to answer those questions or are politicians?? Supreme court justices??

IMHO I think we need more philosophers in this world

[mwalshe]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hobson:
Are you blaming the workers for industrial oppression?]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
No obviously not. I AM saying that apply enough force and you will get change. Enough force has not been applied yet to see change in these areas but it will. (Unless big business gets really insidious and realises that minor concessions can lead to enough complacency that big change never comes about)

[This message was edited by maggymay on Feb. 08, 2003 at 09:02 AM.]

[RAyers]

Would it be possible to have a conference of Horses and World Affairs? I'd love to seat those that have replied to this thread on the panel. I haven't had to pull out my history books, dictionary, encyclopedias, and you name it so many times!

JER,

While what I said may be cliche, I think you also provided a clearer explanation of what I mean. True, art does go on, regardless of the state of society or the human condition, However, meaningful art comes from the ultimate expression of human emotions. It is during the times of societal upheaval that emotion is refined in a crucible to a purer state, good or bad.

maggymay,

I would suggest a book by Samuel Florman, "The Introspective Engineer." It deals with some of the the questions you ask (and it is part of the reading list for my graduate biomaterials calss). Scientists have to answer theses questions in conjunction with the public, government, and society in general in a process similar to what is happening here about spaceflight/the space program.

Reed

[Weatherford]

None of the women posting here have mentioned (other that the washing machine) the positive social impact of technology and the changes over the past century.

YES, there are still sweatshops of women and child laborers, but NOTHING compared to the late 19th century.

Without the technology and the ensuing rise in the middle class, I don't think Feminist idealogy would have been possible, much less the norm.

It's OUT! Linda Allen's 101 Exercises for Jumping co-authored by MOI!!!

[Elghund2]

OK, I'm getting caught here after travelling yesterday. To hObsons point (and it is always fun to argue with the socialist of the board), I do think all of this technology, exploration, etc. is progress and has made life infinitely better.

First of all, look at communnications. When people first came to this country back in the 1600's there was really no effective way to communicate with the family back home. They could go year without having any news. Now, you can just pick up the telephone and talk to practically anyone.

Without technology there would be no mass communications. There would be no worldwide desemination of information. Here we are about to go to war, and with the exception of top secret information, we know as much as anyone what the situation is. Anything that happens in the middle East is reported almost instantly and avaiable to the public. A 100 years ago, we would have been in the dark about what our government was doing.

The advent of the Internet and the massive amount of data (I wouldn't call all of it information) it provides helps keep corporate America in check. Do you think Enron, Worldcom etc., would have been caught without the amount of information avaiable through technology. This keeps us from falling back into the dark days of capitalism of the robber barons.

Just for the communications that exist, I think the technology has advanced our standard of living.

"I thought I was dead once but it turns out, I was only in Nebraska."

[Eomer]

The problem with most of the anti-tech posts is their arguments use propaganda techniques to support them. the modern term is "logical fallacy"

Let's take the first paragraph of hobson's last post as an example.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
DMK, would you argue that the world of marketing has no effect on cultural expectations? Interesting, given that few of us still wear 1950s-era house frocks, ....Why in the world are "billions and billions" spent on advertising if it has no utility? Doesn't everybody tune in for the superbowl ads to see what the next big thing is going to be?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

-h "DMK, would you argue that the world of marketing has no effect on cultural expectations?"

Of course not who would. But then in his very next words he assumes a negative answer.

-h "Interesting,"

Then goes on to label DMK as a simpleton that falls hook line and sinker for every fashion ploy.

-h "given that few of us still wear 1950s-era house frocks"

And then comes back with another question who's answer can only be positive as proof the foregoing is true. Which "proof" doesn't necessarily follow logically.

-h "Why in the world are "billions and billions" spent on advertising if it has no utility?

The real problem with the sentence above is one little word, "NO". Certainly ""billions and billions" aren't spent if the have ***"NO"*** utility. But it doesn't necissarily follow that those billions turn DMK and EVERYONE else into mindless fashion plates. The assumed though unworded logic is that yes there can be found an example of someone falling for every fashion add, therefore everybody falls for them.

The last sentence that ties his whole argument together is the most interesting, well funny; let's take the first part.

-h "Doesn't everybody tune in for the superbowl adds ..."

No, I haven't watched a Super Bowl in 20 years.

-h "to see what the next big thing is going to be?"

Gee, my guess is one or two of the folks actually "tune in" to ... em ... watch the game?.

I don't mean to pick on hobson, but these kinds of arguments are a major road block to any discussion trying to come to a "LOGICAL" conclusion. I've just examined one paragraph that was presented as very logical, yet there is nearly zero REAL logic in it. It's not just hobson's "logical fallacies" either. You have posters like pt that set themselves up as "accepted authorities" shooting down or discounting valid arguments but never offering any alternative examples to support their view.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
I don't care that the money comes from the gov't. I just haven't been convinced that the space program the wisest use of funds.

(what would be a wiser way?)

I guess that it just seems the research could be funded research into such things as hydrogen fuel cells that might improve the quality of life on earth without going into this space program - punching holes in the atmosphere for one thing, creating planetary weapons for another.

(someone later pointed out that hydrogen fuel cells are a product of the space program)

My magic is elsewhere. And space or no space, I don't believe there will be a future for coming generations if we don't deal with some serious problems right here on earth.

(why doesn't she offer a suggestion of how to deal with "some serious problems"? What serious problems?)

I saw that, too, as an even smaller child. Sat there in a room of enthralled adults while I was thinking, So what?
(This was in reference to landing on the moon, )
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What's going on here is a debate using rules that allows one side to use half truths and exagerations and offer no viable alternative only criticism for criticism sake. While holding the other side to strict values and logic. I'm sorry but I'm sorry but I'm calling ... Bull ... lony!

I plan to live forever ...
... so far so good.

[This message was edited by Eomer on Feb. 08, 2003 at 08:45 AM.]

[DMK]

Don't worry about hobson, eomer - we spent more time than I care to recall battling the forces of evil during the great Gush-Bore Thread of 2000. (RAyers - we HAVE done Horses and Foreign Affairs, btw - just check out favorites, but so far this is a much more civil affair). We just occassionally find ourselves on different sides of the same coin. I certainly don't take it personal.

But to answer your question, hobson, yes I do believe advertising pushes, nudges and molds human nature. But that is a profoundly different statement from saying it changes human nature. I don't believe it does.

And I do believe the average human needs to stay busy. (Although I will say at times in our history, we have been known to push ourselves... Is that advertising playing on our human nature... probably!) I don't know if this is left over from millions of years spending every minute of existence trying to survive, or because we have a brain that allows us to be creative and we must exercise it. All I know is that right now there is a pile of maine coon cat and corgi at my feet while I type away. And if I wasn't typing I would be reading. Now maybe Sunday morning I will join the cat and dog in a puddle of inert being, but not right now.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein

[Eomer]

I can defend the proposition that mankind could have done very well without technology ... thank you! Take the African Bushman as an example. They live quite well in an area that doesn't even have a constant supply of water. There is another group of people that live in the far reaches of Siberia, Year A Round, on nothing but caribou. But, by and large that's not how most of us live. This isn't "Wonderland" it isn't any other time or place, we are what we are, where we are, left with environmental, political, ethical and technical situations we don't necissairly like. But we must deal with them.

To assume that technological advances got us into this mess and more will only make things worse is, again, a logical fallacy. First not all technology has caused problems and second some technology that is problematic now actually was developed to over come problems of the past. Just think of the manure pile outside your barn and consider how long a four up team and coach is. Then imagine the files (and disease that goes with them) and trafic problems we'd have if we all used horse power for every day transportation. So far the automobile hasn't worked out as well as we hoped it would in solving traffic and polution problems; to say the least. But to veiw ALL new technology in the light that it can only add to our problems is logical fallacy, I offer weather and gps satelites as an example.

In a nutshell the tooth paste is out of the tube, we must deal with it. No one that is a proponent of the space program believes it is without problems and risk, not that I know of anyway. But dollar for dollar, downside to upside, it is currently the best investment we are making in our future. Much of the bennifit to mankind that comes from the space program is in offshoot tech that often isn't even attributed to space, desk top pc's and the internet are good examples. As someone once said, "EVERY dollor spent on space research is spent right here on earth". Some of those dollars certainly could be better spent, maybe a lot of it. And then there's catastrophys like the one that spawned this thread. But that's no reason to trash the whole program. In our humaness we must press on. We can't cower in a corner of environmental issolationism and hope for our species and the world to survive. We will make more mistakes, but what, do we quit? I don't think so.

I plan to live forever ...
... so far so good.

[JER]

Whether or not technology is to blame, Americans (as well as Brits and some other Europeans) are working more hours per week than before. Between 1990-2000, US workers somehow added, on average, about 40 hours per year to their work schedule. And with fewer vacations days -- the average vacation is 2 weeks/year, but an alarming number of people don't even use all those days.

This despite the advent of IT and telecommuting. Some studies have shown that telecommuters actually work MORE hours -- which is what happens when you don't make a clean break from the office. Is this really progress?

Another scary notion of 'progress': sex selection. In parts of India and China, couples abort female fetuses in order to get the coveted male heir. So now male-female birth rates are skewed -- in some places, 800 girls born for every 1000 boys. And this is just the beginning. What are the implications?

Which brings this back to the space shuttle Columbia, as Dr. Kalpana Chawla came from one of these communities in India. If conceived today, there's a good chance she'd never make it to birth, due in part to the technological 'progress' of sex selection.

[Weatherford]

Despite IT and telecommuting, we are working FAR fewer hours than one hundred years ago - unless you were part of the upper-socio-economic echelon, and few were. Also, it is our CHOICE to telecommute and/or work more hours, and for many, it is a choice to work! That is, IMHO, an incredible step forward.

I believe the infanticide problem, which, from what I have read, is a problem in CHINA, not India, is a direct result of the Chinese GOVERNMENT trying to stem population growth in their country. So, every couple may have ONE child. Period. Girl children are HISTORICALLY not considered beneficial to the family - they "don't work", they need a "dowry" to marry well, etc etc. So, families are killing off their girl babies at birth (hiding the birth), so they can try for the boy.

Many of the girls, because they ARE considered a toll on the families are sold into prostitution - which produces either an income or one flat fee...

This problem is NOT the RESULT of technology, by a LONG SHOT. As a matter of fact, as this information has come to light (because of technology!!), there has been considerable pressure on the Chinese Government to change the law.

This is only the problem in a nutshell - of course, it is far more complex than that, but it is NOT a result of "progress" as you would make it sound! As a matter of fact, "progress" has OPENED doors that otherwise would not be open to women all over the world. Even Afghanistan had women doctors, university professors, etc, before that take over by the fundamentalists!! (Before the burkas came back!)

It's OUT! Linda Allen's 101 Exercises for Jumping co-authored by MOI!!!

[Kryswyn]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I believe the infanticide problem, which, from what I have read, is a problem in CHINA, not India, is a direct result of the Chinese GOVERNMENT trying to stem population growth in their country. So, every couple may have ONE child. Period. Girl children are HISTORICALLY not considered beneficial to the family - they "don't work", they need a "dowry" to marry well, etc etc. So, families are killing off their girl babies at birth (hiding the birth), so they can try for the boy.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, while the Chinese gov't is the only one to mandate one child, in other parts of Asia and in India female infants are killed (or abandoned to die) for the reasons you cite. International adoptions from Asian countries for girl children are very easy according to my friends who just got their second child. Interestingly, they went to pick up their first girl and were handed a boy. When they questioned it, through the interpreter they were told, "Boy child available - why you want girl?!" clearly indicating the value the ORPHANAGE placed on boys... When they got their little girl, you guessed it, the orphanage apologised for not having a boy to give them.

So the Government can remove the prohibition, but it can't change the populations consencious that boys are better. That will only come in 10-15 years when all the boy children have no girl children to marry, and the girls who get married realize that they have the power to say NO, and begin a woman's movement that over a few generations could cause a monumental shift to a female controlled China. It will be an interesting time, as Confucious would say!

~Kryswyn~
"Always look on the bright side of life, de doo, de doo de doo de doo"

[magnum]

I have really enjoyed this discussion -- it made me ponder, laugh and muse. Esp. Reed's posts, since we are huge space program fans.

BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM HERE, tho -

In spite of our support of the shuttle program conceptually, I think the shuttle has outlived it's usefullness in many ways. It isn't a SPACE explorations tool ANYMORE.

If we want to EXPLORE space, then we need a more firm plan, and an improved one to do so.

Right now, we are really doing a good deal of WONDERFUL research on many a wonderful subject, an I hope we do NOT stop that research.

But true SPACE EXPLORATION -- we seem to have left that program in a file on a shelf (or in military terms, we seem to have deep sixed it).

I hope we can refocus someday soon and develop a true SPACE EXPLORATION and transportation module -- all the while simultaneously continuing our infinitely valuable research in space.

"I tend to listen most to the advice of the person least likely to give it."

[JER]

Weatherford, it would be nice if it was a CHOICE to work, but I think more people are struggling financially at the present. Economic indicators would bear that out.

As for China and the one child policy, it was a bold step for a huge nation to grapple with one of the biggest problems facing the world: overpopulation. Yes, the policy has been relaxed in rural areas and even in cities now, but that does not mean population control is not treated as a serious issue.

When the one-child policy was instituted, the Chinese government was also trying to educate women and bring them into the workforce. This would, it was hoped, negate the social issues that were oppressing women.

But giving women 'equal' opportunity did not change these social customs. In China, and in India as well, families still want boys. Girls are going to be married off to live with their husband's family, so who is going to take care of you in your old age?

Sex selection -- available now through advances in medicine -- is not the same as female infanticide or giving baby girls up for adoption. Female infanticide can be prevented to some extent (in China, the health dept would monitor your pregnancy) and an adopted baby girl, or even one that grows up in an orphanage, stands a chance in life. But sex selection renders useless all advances in womens' rights and gender equality -- solving the 'problem' of women by just not having them in the first place.

[pt]

OK - It's warmer, I finished my murder mystery, and being Monday, the choice is between working and playing on this thread (hadda leave Friday 'cuz no 'puter at home - nonono! )

Speaking of logical fallacies - there seems to be a logical fallacy at work which assumes that questioning the validity of the space programs (exploration, shuttle, spy satellites, cruise missiles etc.) equals a desire to eliminate all scientific research.

Not in my eyes. My questions are, Is the space program the most cost-effective method of expanding scientific knowledge? This would include $$$$$$, environmental costs, cost in human life (more than the seven lost last week). And has technology taken on a frankensteinian life of its own which is actually damaging human life in some ways? And just what is the threat/problem in looking critically at the space program, or any scientific pursuit, or any person or program whatsoever?

The space program is what the advertisers call "sexy." It has courageous astronauts, sleek ships and exciting blastoffs as well as imaginative possibilities largely based on Star Trek and similar fictions in the mind of the general public. But are we really getting enough bang for the buck?

Do you care about the environmental damage caused by large rockets spewing quantities of exhaust as they blast holes in the atmosphere? Or is that an acceptable cost?

Don't you think that if we put as much time, $$$, manpower and energy into dealing with the problems we've created here on earth as we have into the space programs, we probably would be a lot closer to solutions and a genuinely improved situation for most people, not just those who can afford the gizmos resulting from inventions spun off from space research?

Cell phones, pc's, the internet - we lived a long time without those things and although you who were born after 1960 may not believe it, we could live a long time without them again - fun as it is to be able to have discussions like this. Medical advances - are you sure the ones that came out of space-related research couldn't possibly have happened without the space program? What about research into natural remedies for illness? What's happening there - or is it being pushed aside so we can invent ever glitzier, and more expensive, machinery?

Are we putting scientific (technological) advancement and education ahead of other fields of study? No? What about the degenerating quality of art, literature, music in the past 40 years? How do you define quality of life? What are the priorities since "imagination" appears to be defined by some as limited to space? If your child wanted to be a professor of classics or a space engineer, which would you encourage and why?

I don't know the answers to these questions - and this certainly isn't a win-lose argument - but it seems wise and timely to consider them.

Or is the space program the 21st century's True Cross, and is it blasphemy to question its validity?

[DMK]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by pt:
Cell phones, pc's, the internet - we lived a long time without those things and although you who were born after 1960 may not believe it, we could live a long time without them again - fun as it is to be able to have discussions like this. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, yes, but we lived a long time without a LOT of things. Central heating and air, silly little medical advances like vaccinations and antibiotics, but that doesn't mean its a good idea to live without them again. I figure once the technological cat is out of the bag, debating it is like counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. Far better to learn to ride the tiger than debate its value.

There. I doubledogdare someone to mix more metaphors in two sentences!

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein

[pt]

There. I doubledogdare someone to mix more metaphors in two sentences!

Dare not taken. I thought I was pretty good at mixing metaphors, but you're the champ!

Well, yes, but we lived a long time without a LOT of things.

Like nuclear warheads? Spy satellites? More and better mind control?

Central heating and air, silly little medical advances like vaccinations and antibiotics, but that doesn't mean its a good idea to live without them again.

Not developed through the space program but through concentrating on problems to solve here. Far more beneficial to mankind than Playstation. You're supporting my point.

I figure once the technological cat is out of the bag, debating it is like counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. Far better to learn to ride the tiger than debate its value.

Oh. So the Geneva Convention should not have outlawed chemical warfare after WWI. We shouldn't support nuclear weapons bans. Once mankind has made a mistake, we should just suck it up and endure the consequences? I don't believe you really mean that. We are capable of doing all sorts of things which mankind has decided aren't acceptable. We can change our focus or re-evaluate a program anytime it seems appropriate to do so. Surely you aren't saying that we are in bondage to any one program or philosophy -